The Queen's Lady (42 page)

“Crazy old scavenger,” Jinner muttered, and lifted the oars.

Honor sat in the bow and watched the town wall slide by as Jinner rowed them through the harbor entrance, then out toward the moored ships. Her heart tightened at the thought of Edward Sydenham. She knew his nerves were raw from a week of evading the authorities. Even worse, he had served much of his sentence in a tiny cell of the Bishop of Ely’s coal house, manacled there for months without a beam of sunlight or a candle.

Poor Edward. His imprisonment and escape had been torture enough, but Honor did not think they had scarred him as much as the reunion with his mother. He’d scrounged his way to London just to see her. But, according to Edward, Bridget’s disapproval at his arrival was only too obvious. “I was supposed to die a martyr, and make her proud,” Edward had growled to Honor. So he had grabbed a few belongings, ready to leave her house for good. And his mother’s only comment, he said, was to grant him permission to take his father’s Bible. Then, he’d slammed the door on her, and run.

Jinner’s voice broke into her thoughts. “M’lady!” His raised oars were frozen in the air.

Honor looked past his shoulder. Three boats were funneling out of the harbor entrance. In one, she could just make out the form of the leather-faced captain from the Tolhouse. She slapped the gunnel, cursing Pelle for his suspicions. “Hurry, Sam,” she cried. “If they’re coming to search the
Dorothy Beale
we’ve got to hide Edward.”

Jinner strained at the oars. Minutes late they were clambering up the
Dorothy Beale
’s fraying rope ladder. Honor hopped on deck and looked back at the captain’s boats. They were heading straight for the ship. She sent Jinner to alert Pilot Tate, then ran across the deck and hurried below. She found Edward in the carpenter’s cabin reading from his father’s large English Bible to the spellbound carpenter’s apprentice. As Edward looked up at her he slammed the book shut, the instinct of the hunted, and pushed his limp orange hair back from his face.

“The Bishop’s men are about to board us,” Honor said. “You’ve got to hide. Follow me!”

Edward’s face drained. Stunned by the crisis, he did not move. Honor snatched the Bible from him. In her haste she fumbled it, and it crashed to the floor between them, splayed open by its very weight. Its pages fanned, and Honor saw a row of names neatly written on the fly leaf. She recognized several of them, and Edward’s handwriting, and realized with a jolt of horror that it was a list of his fellow Brethren.

“Fool!” she cried. She checked herself, and stifled her anger. “Edward, we have no time. Hurry!”

Still he did not move. Honor bent and swept up the Bible and hauled Edward by the elbow out of the cabin.

They dashed past empty hammocks that stank of the ghosts of two generations of crewmen living close-packed, then went down the lower companionway. Here, in the gut of the ship, was the hold.

Honor stumbled forward in the gloom. The hold reeked of seeping bilge water. The plank floor was slippery with a mucous film. Stray crates and barrels bruised her shins. She grunted, pushing them out of her way, one arm hampered by the heavy Bible. She hiked her skirt to get over the step for the mainmast in the center of the keelson, and made her way past the brick galley and its cold cauldrons. Just beyond it, a low ramp led to a platform that covered two bays for firewood and ballast.

She hurried up the ramp. Between the bays she dropped to her knees and put down the Bible. She felt with her fingertips along the platform floor until she hit upon a depression the size of a knothole. She flashed a smile of triumph at Edward. He had remained on the stairs. Standing to straddle the spot, Honor hooked her finger into the depression and yanked. A two-foot-square hatch shuddered loose. She lifted it, revealing a narrow pit—a yawning square blacker than the blackness of the unlit hold. She jerked back her head at the stomach-curdling foulness that rolled out.

“Come,” she said to Edward.

But Edward had frozen on the stairs. His hand flew to his throat. The putrid air seemed to be suffocating him.

“You’ll be safe in here,” she said. “They’ll not find you, I promise.”

His glassy eyes were locked on the pit. He shook his head in jerks. “No . . . not . . . again . . .” He would not, could not, move.

“It won’t be for long, Edward. An hour at most. Then they’ll go. Hurry, now!”

“No! They’ll stay till they find me! They know I’m here!”

“Of course they don’t,” she reassured him. She realized that his phobia was magnifying the danger. “Pelle orders these snap searches all the time, of us and others. For him it’s routine. You have only to hide here quietly for an hour, probably less. Then they’ll go, and you can come out.”

“Don’t you understand? They
know!”

She felt a chill. “Edward, what are you saying?”

“Your pilot was taking forever . . . rigging and nonsense . . . we should have sailed hours ago. I was going mad . . . waiting below . . . I couldn’t breathe. I had to get on deck. Just before you came, I went up. I stood at the railing. It was only for a moment, I swear! Oh, God . . . how could I know Claypole would be rowing by? He saw me. He knows me!”

Honor blanched. Claypole. The harbor scavenger who had collided with her and Jinner. He must have tipped Pelle.

“Damn you! I told you to stay below!”

“I couldn’t help it! It was Satan . . . working his worst on me!”

She stalked toward him. “No, it wasn’t. You’ve made this mess yourself. Well, you can damned well deal with it yourself!” She pointed a stiff arm behind her at the pit. “Now swallow your fear and climb down there while I try to get rid of Pelle’s men. Move!”

“No!” In a burst of panic to be gone he twisted on the stair and slipped. His fingers clawed at the slimy wood above him. He found a hand-hold and bolted up the steps.

She ran after him. She caught up with him outside the carpenter’s cabin. Though he was taller than Honor, she grappled the shoulders of his shirt and wrenched him against the closed doorway and pinned him there, her fists bunched beneath his chin. He blinked at her impotently, stunned with terror.

“Listen to me!” she said. “If you’re found, you put me and every man on this ship in peril, and many ashore as well. I will not let that happen. You
must
go below. There’s no place else that’s safe. I promise you I’ll get rid of these men.”

Under her fists his body twitched as though in convulsions, wracked by dry sobs. He let out a thin wail. Appalled, she released him. He slid down the door and fell to his knees, weeping out of control.

He’ll never go below, she realized. Even if we drag him into the hole and cover it, he’ll scream from within and draw them to him.

She looked up. Frightened crewmen stood silently on the companionway. The iron-faced Pilot Tate watched her, waiting. Jinner gnawed the edge of his mustache and watched her, waiting. From the upper deck, the bosun’s shout told them that Pelle’s men were nearing. Sweat trickled down her ribs . . . her heavy cloak was stifling her . . .

The cloak!

She whirled it from her shoulders and crouched. “Edward, listen. You shall not go to the hold. Can you hear me? You shall not go down there. Can you walk?”

He lifted his tear-stained face and nodded.

She beckoned the pilot and two other men to help him to his feet. “Put this on,” she said to Edward as she threw the cloak over his shoulders. “The officers will see you, but they’ll think you’re me. They know I’d be leaving the ship before she sails. Jinner will take you ashore. Just hold the hood tightly around your face, do as Jinner says, and you’ll be safe. Do you understand?”

Edward nodded shakily, wiping his eyes.

“Sam,” Honor said, stopping Jinner on the companionway as the men hustled Edward to the upper deck, “take him to the far side of the quay. Get a fast horse of Thornleigh’s and send him off to Lynn. Master Ives of the
Falcon
might give him passage. Tell Edward to give Ives this.” She shoved a purse into Jinner’s hands, then clutched his arm. “And be careful, Sam. That scavenger Claypole has betrayed us.”

Jinner’s face hardened. “Bastard!”

“Go now.”

“But my lady, what will you . . . ?”

“Go!” she cried, and shoved him up the last two steps.

Minutes later she peered out a crack in a lidded gunport and watched as Jinner helped the shrouded figure down into the skiff. The captain’s three boats were closing in. They could not fail to notice the skiff pulling away from the ship, but Edward was tightly clutching the hood of the cloak, and Jinner was rowing in a wide arc around the boats. Honor slumped with relief to see that the captain was ignoring the retreating green-cloaked “lady.” If Sam made it to shore, she told herself, Pelle might not ask to see her immediately. He wouldn’t expect Thornleigh’s wanton, ignorant little “partner” to know anything. Later, when the search proved fruitless, he might ask for her at the house, but Sam could put them off the trail. And by then Edward would be gone.

The three boats banged alongside. Honor ran across to the hiding place and snatched up the incriminating Bible. She crouched on the platform and swung her legs down into the pit. She took a deep breath.
They’ll be thorough
, she thought,
but they’ll be leaving empty-handed
.

Pelle’s men stomped through the hold shoving barrels, kicking crates, clanging around the galley cauldrons, poking into the firewood bays. After twenty minutes the captain barked the order to withdraw above deck. Honor heard the shuffle of many boots ascending the stairs. Then, there was no sound except the rhythmic low squeaking of ropes against wood, and wood against wood . . . and the thudding of her heart.

Could she come out now? Was it safe? She only had to lift the hatch and climb out. No, she’d be a fool to come out. They couldn’t possibly have left the ship yet. She must be patient. With any luck they’d soon start to think that Claypole had been mistaken. They’d give up and go. Pilot Tate would come for her.
Be patient
.

But it was so vile! So black . . . she couldn’t even see her own hand. And no room. She couldn’t keep standing like this . . . with the hatch pressing down on her neck.

As she hugged the Bible her fingers drummed its cover. Her fingertips felt the stark, embossed gold cross. In a flash of grim humor she saw herself standing like some pilgrim lost in prayer, with head bowed and the Bible clasped to her bosom.

Couldn’t keep standing . . . but this scum on the floor . . . oh, God, it was on the walls, too!
Stop this
, she commanded herself.
Stay calm. Put the Bible down. There, now . . . sit on the Bible. Alright. Better
. . .

There was only enough room to sit with her knees drawn up. Even then, her toes touched the far wall. In the corner she felt something soft against her foot. She did not know what it was. And then, with a shudder, she did know. A dead rat.

Oh, please
, please
let them leave soon!

“Steady, boy!”

Behind the stable at Thornleigh’s house Jinner was still fastening the horse’s cinch as Edward clawed up into the saddle and glanced over his shoulder with hunted eyes. He had thrown off Honor’s cloak—it lay at Jinner’s feet—but had covered his telltale orange hair with a black cap from the stable.

“Don’t fret, sir,” Jinner said, grunting as he tightened the strap. “Star is Master Thornleigh’s fleetest gelding. He’ll carry you to Lynn quick as a jackrabbit. Remember, now, it’s Master Ives on Salter Street. He’s across from—”

“Where’s the purse?” Edward cried in a strangled whisper.

“In the saddlebag,” Jinner said. He gave a sharp tug to the cinch.

“That’s good enough! Let go!” Edward said, and shoved Jinner away.

“Good luck to you, sir,” Jinner growled through his teeth, and slapped the horse’s rump hard. It galloped down the lane belching breaths under Edward’s furious kicks.

A few minutes later, still puffing from the dash up from the stable, Jinner peered out a corner of Thornleigh’s front room window. A knot of officers was marching down the street toward the house, a sergeant and five men, all armed with swords. Jinner kneaded the green cloak bunched in his hands.

A fist banged the door. Jinner balled up the cloak and thrust it into a chest. He caught a servant boy watching him from the entrance to the kitchen. With a finger to his lips he motioned the boy to keep quiet, then illustrated the consequences of disobeying by jerking the finger across his throat like a knife. The boy shrank back into the kitchen.

Jinner answered the door.

*

Honor arched her back. Fire flared up from her buttocks. Thirst thickened her throat.

Toes numb now . . . she almost wished her legs were, too, instead of these needle pains. And stomach cramps. What she’d give to stretch . . . just stretch this one leg . . . it was on fire . . .

Forget the leg! She could endure this. She
could!
But what could be happening up on deck? It had been hours . . .

There’d been a skirmish. That was it. Tate had fought back. Been killed. All the crew were dead and no one knew she was here!

Stop it! There was no reason for Tate to fight. Soon he’d come. But, oh, how much longer? Was it day or was it night?

In her ears the washing of the ocean swelled and sighed as if a monstrous living seashell breathed inside her skull, and that brought even wilder fantasies . . .

Tate had confessed to Pelle! Told him everything. They were both up there, sitting on deck, smiling together like two toads slimy with the scum of this pit, smiling and waiting for her to perish below in this tomb!

Violently, she beat her forehead on her knees, smashing the hallucination.

How much longer . . . ?

Jinner sat in the deserted tavern staring into his mug of ale. From the neighboring precinct of the Benedictine priory came the unhurried chanting of monks at Compline, their eight o’clock service to God. Jinner buried his face in his hands. Ten hours she’d been in the hold.

The sergeant who had come to the house had accepted his story that she had ridden off to Norwich. “After that, it’s back to London,” Jinner had said. Then he had asked, feigning surprise, “What’s this all about, Sergeant?”